Research Abstracts Online
January
2008 - March 2009

University of Minnesota Twin Cities
Institute of Technology
Department of Mechanical Engineering

PI: Uwe R. Kortshagen, Associate Fellow

Separation Control Using Plasma Actuators on Low-pressure Turbine Airfoils With Passing Wakes

These researchers are developing a plasma actuator array that can suppress boundary-layer separation on a low-pressure turbine airfoil operating at a very low-chord Reynolds number. The key to this is the accurate modeling of the actuator and its influence on the flow-enabling optimum design under transient conditions created by passing wakes. One focus is the development of models for dielectric barrier discharge actuators. The researchers will also address the integration of these models into computational fluid dynamics models that will be sophisticated enough to allow accurate control of the actuators in the unsteady wake-passing event. Their plasma model will be used to evaluate the body force due to momentum transfer from charged particles. During this period, the researchers worked on helium-nitrogen atmospheric pressure glow discharge. The model involves a self-consistent solution of the Poisson equation for the electric field and continuity and momentum equations for all the species. A more complete chemistry will be implemented to describe air plasma. The complete model will be run for the conditions tested in the experiments.

Another focus has been the accurate prediction of electron energy distribution function, which is essential for the correct prediction of atomic processes and plasma chemical rates in low-pressure plasmas.